I was talking to a mate of mine who is a mechanic lastnite and I was asking him about working my A15 to make it ballsy. He suggested that the money i would spend on working the A15 would be better spent converting to a 4AGZE or CA18. Ive never really had much to do with conversions but have always wanted to do one. I have very little mechanical experience but am not incompetent. Eg i can remove engines, change clutches remove diff centres but cant rebuild engines etc. I am also on a limited budget. Say..... $2500. Is it worth the trouble? My mate says all he used to do was conversions and he could give me a hand to do the hard stuff. Is it possible to get an engine in and running on this budget and then slowly over time as money becomes less of an issue upgrade brakes, fuel system etc? I really dont know and could use some advice. I really really have always wanted to do a conversion but do you think its an unobtainable goal for me at the moment?

my dads A15 was done on the chaep. he went to datsprot or datrally in melbourne(it is one of them) and they told him unless you are going for extreme power levels you dont need to spend money getting parts balance E.G crank rods stuff like that.

he rebuilt the engine using standard internals, new piston just acl ones that were the first oversize and all new bearings, got the head shaved to raise compression and got the cam reground and wade cams from memory he got the wade 120 grind which creates real good mid range and top end but still idles good.

the car is running with custome made headers, he did them him self and they are real nice and twin 4omm delortoes. it isnt tuned yet but has no problem leaving the drive way spining the wheels.

it goes real well for the money put into it.

Dude I don`t think $2500 is enough for a legal conversion!
To get it legaly registered you 'MUST' upgrade the brakes, that`s what the engineer would want for starters. Then engine/gearbox mounts would have to be inspected & approved;emmisions,new wheel & tyre combo( necessary for your larger diameter discs) etc.etc.etc.
Not to mention wiring the whole thing up.
Oh and what about the electric fuelpump?
Tailshaft mods & balance?
That`s about all I can think of right now, but you probably get the picture.
I suppose if you obtained your engine/gearbox for free, most of the work could be achieved for $2500.
Please correct me if I am wrong !

I'm for conversion. Say you spend the $2500 on your A15, then what? It goes about as well as a stock CA18. But if you'd done the CA18, you have room to build it up later ... but now the A15 is maxed out.

On the other hand, if you do all the work yourself, there is the satisfaction of knowing how it all is put together. In this case I might suggest build up the A15.

spend $1000 or $1500 on a mild a15 and cane it for years while buying the parts and saving the $$$f or the leagal conversion.You could always do the brakes now with stanza struts etc and spend on the a15, all for under $1500 probably and have just as much fun and less legal hassles than the 4ag.

I am sure if you check with the registration authorities you will probably find that like NSW any bigger than 1.4L has to be engineer inspected anyway. ( worth checking out)
As for how much you have to spend, I would just do the A15, as even if you did it all yourself there is no way I can see you can do an CA or any other major conversion for this price limit.

Even if you do it all Yourself it will cost more than $2500 im doing most things myself and looking at about $6-7000 it really adds up when you start doing the conversion.